Hill forts shed light on the life of our ancestors
Iron Age settlers took the high ground to keept their communities safe
GRIMSBURY Castle, near Hermitage, is one of at least seven hill forts surrounding Newbury. Although there is no ‘castle’ there as such, there is enough archaeological evidence to show the existence of an ancient hill fort.
As a complete novice to all things Iron Age and this startling discovery that Rome may have its hills, but Newbury has its hill forts, GERALDINE GARDNER did a little metaphorical digging
WHAT is a hill fort?
Built in the Iron Age, 750BC to 43AD, hill forts were generally in defensible positions, but had a variety of uses, from settlements to food stores, refuges to meeting places and perhaps religious centres.
Not necessarily exciting to the layman, it is the sheer scale of these monuments that makes them so impressive and the massive community effort that must have gone in to constructing them.
They help historians and archaeologists piece together an invaluable insight into the life and times of our forebears.
Hill forts vary in size and shape, but are a defining part of the landscape.
Some are merely fields where livestock were kept, while others cover vast acres, with undulating borders, shaping the high ramparts and deep trenches.
The two most common type of hill forts are the contour fort – which has a bank and ditch dug along the contour line surrounding high ground – and the promontory fort, where the fort is
positioned on a spur of land that has its own natural defences.
There are others as well, including those on flat land, where it is thought stock was kept.
The forts could be univallate – one banked-and-ditched enclosure – to multivallate, with three or more banks.
Whatever the style of the fort, it was defended by ramparts, which can be traced today along the banks and ditches that form its shape.
The palisades that are likely to have been on the top of the banks no longer exist, but were made of wood, stone or earth.
It is thought they would have been constructed using picks and wooden spades, with baskets to transfer the rubble and soil.
Amateur archaeologist Eric Wood estimated that it would have taken 150 men about four months to fortify an eight-acre enclosure with just one single bank and ditch.
From various excavations, it seems that the Iron Age dwellers’ weapon of choice was the sling shot – a remarkably accurate and deadly weapon with a range of 200m to 350m.
Other artefacts discovered in the hill fort areas, including razors, mirror fragments, pins and brooches, give an insight into life during the Iron Age, up to the time of the Roman Invasion around 43AD.
There are thought to be more than 3,000 hill forts in the British Isles, although they are not evenly distributed.
The largest concentration is in the south and west, especially Wales.
The significance of hill forts has led organisations to campaign for their preservation for posterity.
The National Trust currently owns and maintains about 79 hill fort sites in the UK.
Listed below are significant sites around Newbury, only four of which are on public land.
Grimsbury Castle, Hermitage
Walking through Fence Wood, between Hermitage and Cold Ash, you could be forgiven for not realising that you are actually in the middle of an ancient hill fort, dating back to the Iron Age.
Grimsbury Castle, as it is known, was built on a plateau overlooking the Kennet and Pang valleys.
It benefits from having a natural spring, which has apparently never run dry.
Although nothing remains of any kind of building, it is clear to archaeologists that a fort once stood there and there is a defined area which shows the shape of the defence building.
It is now almost entirely covered in trees, many of which were replanted in the 1950s.
It is thought that Grimsbury was a ‘multiple enclosure’ hillfort occupied certainly between the third and second centuries BC.
Triangular in shape it has three entrances and covers about eight acres. One of the entrances led to the spring, to supply water to the fort.
The name Grimsbury, is a nod to the chief of the Saxon gods, Woden, also known as Grim.
So impressed were the Saxons by the structure, that they believed Grim must have had a hand in its construction.
Access to the land, which is on the Eling Estate, is via permissive paths, clearly marked.
Find out more at www.elingestate.co.uk